


Quicksilver

by Crescence



Series: Deja Vu [3]
Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: A Conversation Long Due, Drowning, Hurt/Comfort, Lukas Listens, Lukas Waldenbeck is Everything, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Philip Remembers, Philip Shea Needs Hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-12 02:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11152047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crescence/pseuds/Crescence
Summary: When they reach the shore of the lake they always come to when either of them need to get away, Lukas tightens his hold on Philip’s hand and pulls him snug to his side, an arm winding around his waist. Philip feels his nose brush against his hair and nuzzle behind his ear before his voice finds him, as quiet as Tivoli itself.Are you sure,Lukas asks him.





	Quicksilver

**Author's Note:**

> It was incredibly difficult to write this and I doubted myself every step of the way. But it has been stirring beneath all my thoughts for months and I wanted to bleed it out. Please heed the warnings in the tags, this is a heavy piece and deals with a heavy subject. Read at your own risk.  
> Listen to [Night by Daniel Spaleniak](https://open.spotify.com/track/2pwSZdH0e1AYC1P8xnVmwh). 
> 
> If you are still here looking to recreate the ache of love Philip and Lukas have made you feel when you were watching Eyewitness, spare ten minutes on Twitter to tell networks why they need to come back.

“Green was the silence, wet was the light,  
the month of June trembled like a butterfly.”  
― Pablo Neruda

* * *

 

There is something almost otherworldly in the quiet wrapped around the woods of Tivoli. The first few months after Philip had moved here, he had found it as sharp as its crude dirt roads that made him jump in Helen’s jeep and the heavy darkness of its nights that seemed so alien to his eyes accustomed to the crepuscular skies of New York City, perpetually aglow with light pollution. Now the quiet of the town and its endless green whispers around him like the soft kisses of the summer breeze he feels on his skin and he finds notes in it that his ears, dulled by the urban din, couldn’t pick up before. He listens to the gentle snap of a twig beneath the sole of his shoe, the distant screech of a cicada pulsating along the lethargic course of shadows of trees on grass, the soft rustle of Lukas’ clothes as he moves beside him.

When they reach the shore of the lake they always come to when either of them need to get away, Lukas tightens his hold on Philip’s hand and pulls him snug to his side, an arm winding around his waist. Philip feels his nose brush against his hair and nuzzle behind his ear before his voice finds him, as quiet as Tivoli itself. _Are you sure,_ Lukas asks him.

The question makes the whole thing real. The lake glimmers, its surface ablaze with sunlight. Smell of moss fills his nostrils. The reality of Philip’s choice makes his heart fall out of sync with the accidental tranquility of the woods around them. Monochrome memories and ageless fear tries to take hold in the long abandoned halls of his mind but he turns in Lukas’ arms, burying the colorless images in the clear blue of his eyes. _Yes,_ he answers.

They undress next to each other, closer than is necessary to move comfortably but neither makes an attempt to step away. Philip lets his shirt fall at his feet and curls his fingers into his palm to hide the tremble of his hands, Lukas steps in to take both of them in his own and stands inches away from him in nothing but his underwear, golden hair falling into his eyes. _You are safe with me,_ he tells him, his thumbs rubbing circles on his wrists. Philip finds sunlight in the Carolina blue of his eyes, dancing in the iridescent etchings across his irises and wonders how many times he could feel his heart opening apart at every lining for falling in love with Lukas Waldenbeck all over again.

He kisses Lukas tender on the lips, takes his time, letting sunlight warm their skin. His breath a touch of warmth against his, he tells him, deep brown in cerulean, _I know. I trust you._

Lukas frowns, looks to the side at the lake before dropping his wrists to cup his cheeks and finding his eyes again.

_The moment you are even just a little bit scared-_

_We’ll stop,_ Philip tells him. _I know._

This is not something he can do with Gabe or Helen. It isn’t a vulnerability he could show them without remembering. Without feeling shame. It isn’t something he can explain. His memory is quicksilver. A puerile haze of grey held behind heavy iron doors in his mind and letting it spill is not something he can do at all without the gravity of Lukas to anchor him in the moment so that he wouldn’t slip away. Only his voice, his touch, only his presence consume every last snatch of his attention to leave no room for fear. With Lukas, Philip wouldn’t be afraid to die. With Lukas, he wasn’t afraid to die.

Lukas nods and slowly walks backwards into the lake, tugging Philip with him.  Philip stares into his eyes and imagines the cool touch of water climbing up his legs is nothing but the depth behind his eyes. At waist level, Lukas stops and moves his hands to rest on either side of him. Through parted lips, Philip breathes a pitch away from even, fingers digging into Lukas’ arms, heartbeat wound to sprint at the first slip of his footing on mossy pebbles. Lukas pulls him into his hold, murmuring reassurances to him and Philip falls into the lull of his voice, the warmth of his touch against his skin in the nipping water.

 _You are with me,_ Lukas tells him, _you are safe_. His hands move upwards, crystal droplets of water trickle down his arms, dripping into the narrow space between them. They catch on the brilliance of sunlight, flickering like diamonds falling from his hands and Lukas places them on Philip’s chest, cool and warm at the same time, trailing his way around the curve of his ribs. He takes half a step in, the water moving in a gentle roll with him. _I won’t ever let anything happen to you, Philip,_ he whispers. Philip can’t see anything but him. _You’re everything_ , Lukas says as if he can’t quite believe Philip’s standing in the water with him. One of his hands slides a wet path up the length of his neck, summer breeze licking coolly against the traces of his touch. _I never want you to be afraid,_ he breathes so quietly, Philip feels the resonance of his voice more than he hears it. Lukas’ other hand comes to rest against his cheek. The kiss unfolds slowly. Behind closed eyelids Philip can feel the shade of a lazy summer cloud moving over them.  His heartbeat finds its dilatory pace. The tremble in his hands stills while his fingers twine in golden hair. Lukas kisses him until Philip is reaching for him, moving in the water to close the space. _I got you,_ Lukas mutters against his lips when he pulls away, his thumb brushing along the hinge of his jawline. Philip nods at him and Lukas tugs him further into the lake, both arms still around his waist.

Philip doesn’t know how long it takes for them to reach the point where the water reaches his collarbones. Lukas asks with each step. Philip tells him to keep going.  He closes his eyes, holds onto Lukas and focuses his whole attention on how safe he feels in his arms. The pebbles move slippery beneath his feet and when the water licks across the base of his neck, Philip swallows the unease, clenches his jaw in rejection of the fear looming behind his thoughts. A sense of weightlessness claims him and Philip refuses to slip under the grey, lighter than he has ever felt, he forsakes the bottom of the lake to pull himself forward and up, wrapping his legs around Lukas’ waist.

Lukas secures his hold right away, turning him around and raising him higher against him and then Philip is looking down at him. Lukas’ expression is warm with such an undivided compassion and a kind of devotion so thick, Philip’s heart burns alight in his chest; rival to the hot touch of sunlight on his back, spilling brilliant into Lukas’ eyes.

The weightlessness threatens to break the chains of memory kept in the vaults of his mind but he never once feels like he is floating rootless in the feeling. The anchor of Lukas’ touch, the certainty of his hold never wavers and when Philip buries his head in the crook of his neck, drifting along with him, he sees the tips of Lukas’ hair drawing golden streaks on the surface of the lake, thinning and spreading like marbled ink. _I love you, Lukas,_ he whispers at the watercolor beauty of it and he tastes the salt of tears on his own lips.

Water falls into water. Tivoli remains quiet.

 

 _I had a rubber dog,_ Philip says, lying on Lukas’ chest by the shore of the lake. All the way from the clearing Lukas left his bike, their little creek is hidden from sight by soaring alder trees that casts their shades on them where they lie. With a hand on Lukas’ chest, Philip watches a lone weeping willow across the shore, its arching branches oscillating listlessly in the wind. Out of the lake and in the warmth of Lukas’ arms, he holds himself steady and allows the images from his memory to press against his eyes, allows the quicksilver to rise inside his chest and words find note in the back of his throat. He makes no attempt to hide the quiver in his voice.

 _Like a rubber duck but mine was a dog,_ he explains and feels Lukas’ realization immobilize him beneath him. The wind breezes through his damp hair. The cicada keeps screeching.

 _You know, you aren’t supposed to remember stuff from when you were three years old but I remember that rubber dog like I'm still holding it in my hand,_  Philip raises his hand from Lukas' chest, curling his fingers around the ghost of his childhood memory against the Tivoli sky. _It was a brown thing with a white belly, two white spots above the eyes and a pink tongue on the side. It even had a red collar with a name tag._ Philip drops his hand.

Lukas runs his fingers through his hair. Philip closes his eyes to his touch. He loves Lukas so much for listening, loves him so much for knowing Philip has to keep talking.

 _My mom was different back then. She wasn’t… It was before she started taking. She worked two jobs and sometimes came home really late. I didn’t know then but… having me wasn’t easy for her, she had no one else. She, she just wanted me so much,_ Philip falters, his voice splintering. Lukas’ lips find his hair, his free hand strokes up and down the length of his arm.

 _We had nice neighbors,_ Philip forces himself to continue. _Sometimes they took care of me and sometimes she took me to work with her. She worked at a diner five days a week and at night she was washing dishes at a restaurant downtown in Yorkville. She was always so tired. I remember that too. She would smile at me and bring me good food from the diner and sometimes even ice cream from the restaurant but she was always just so tired._

Philip stops when the thread of his story comes short in his hands. He watches the willow ripple across the lake like a fever dream, his breath throbbing locked behind his larynx, his chest tight with what’s coming. He has never told anyone why he didn’t swim.

 _Philip,_ Lukas calls out to him, arms tight around his shoulders, lips still in his hair. _You don’t have to._

Philip finds his hand and cards his fingers through his, resting them both on Lukas’ chest, tucked close to his own heart, like he needs to hold on for his life. _I know,_ he whispers to him, despite the grey of memory seeping into his mind, filling his lungs. Despite the static loudening in his ears. The sound of water.

 _It happened between shifts,_ Philip closes his eyes. _She was home to give me a bath and make dinner before she left for her night job. We… we had a small bathroom. Barely enough space for two people but… she has always been tiny too. You… you know how she was,_ Philip trails off, feels Lukas nod against him, his voice as weak as his own.

_Yeah baby, I know._

_She’d always sit with me when I played in the tub. She’d ask me about my day. Ask if anything good happened while she was away. And I just,_ Philip’s voice dies in his throat. He is three again, back in the shabby bathroom of their shabby apartment, sitting in the tub with his rubber dog floating in the water, asking his mother to stop calling him baby because he was a big boy now while she smiled from the floor next to him, arms resting against the side of the tub, looking at him like he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Philip can’t breathe.

 _It was just two minutes,_ hewhispers with a voice so low, he could be talking to himself. _Just two minutes. The water was still pouring from the tap and my hands were soapy and… and I tried to grab the rubber dog. But it slipped from my fingers, fell outside the tub. I… I told mom, I asked mom to give it back but she didn’t answer. She was just there with her arms on the edge of the tub like always but her head was down too and she was so tired Lukas, she worked so much and I wanted to… I wanted to get it myself and I reached outside but everywhere was slippery and I just,_ Philip nearly chokes on the words, his hands shaking, the sound of water so deafening he can’t even hear the cicada through its roar.

Lukas pulls him up into him, arms tight around his middle, a hand in his hair and Philip can hear the way his heart stutters in his chest, feel how his lungs heave trying to draw air. Lukas touches him everywhere, leaving not an inch of his skin in the cold of his memory even as Philip falls apart, even though he is falling apart with him.

 _I slipped,_ Philip tries to tell him through the rumble of water, pouring, spilling in the tub. _It wasn’t her fault, I should have waken her up and I didn’t. I slipped and I… I hit my head and it was so grey under the water, Lukas, it was just grey like I was sinking in quicksilver and I couldn’t move, I tried but I couldn’t move my arms or my legs and when I breathed it was wet everywhere, in my mouth, my nose, in my lungs, it felt so wrong and I knew it was wrong and I knew mom would be upset but I couldn’t get out and the water kept pouring. It just kept pouring-_

 _Oh God, Philip, God I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,_ Lukas gasps against his temple, rocking Philip against him and Philip turns in his arms to bury his face in the curve of his neck, closing his eyes to listen to him breathe. He is cradled so tight in Lukas’ arms he can’t possibly be floating, he can’t be drowning, he can’t be feeling the wrongness of water in his lungs. Everything from the warmth wrapped around his knee to the fingers buried in his hair, everything he feels is Lukas. He imagines being under the willow tree, hidden and tucked under the frail canopy of it, an emerald sanctuary for just him and Lukas to forget everything behind its shuddering veil.

 _Why,_ Lukas’ voice break on the single syllable, he draws a breath that wavers in his throat. _Then why do you-_

He can’t finish. Philip understands anyway.

 _It was the last thing I heard,_ he tells him, his voice barely a whiff against Lukas’ skin _. The sound was loud at first but at one point everything stopped feeling so wrong, I thought I was going to be okay, mom would wake up and see that I could breathe in water and she would be so happy. That… that was the last thing I was thinking. Such a stupid thing. And the water just kept pouring and then it wasn’t grey anymore. It was just dark and all I could hear was the water and it made me not be afraid, like I was away from the dark and away from the wrong feeling and I was safe. It wasn’t even loud anymore and I just, I just listened to it until I couldn’t hear anything anymore. It calmed me._

Lukas shakes beneath him and Philip knows he is crying without even raising his head. They hold on and breathe uneven against each other, clinging so tight Philip’s muscles ache with exertion until Lukas twists, pushing him down on his back and his hands find his face as he descends onto him, his lips find his cheek, his eyes, his forehead, his jaw, his lips. He kisses him over and over again, through his tears and through the subtle sobs, he kisses him so many times, Philip loses count of them. His shaking hands trace along Philip’s cheekbones and coast over the edge of his jawline. _You are okay,_ he says as they trail down the curve of his neck, as if he is talking to himself, as if he needs the reassurance as much as Philip does. His fingers splay against the indents of his ribs. _You are okay,_ he repeats and Philip wipes his tears away. Lukas takes him in his arms, rests his head on Philip’s chest, ear pressed over his heartbeat.

Soreness thrums through Philip’s bones. Something in the very core of him gapes open, like a fresh gash from a knife, something so tender he feels more exposed than he has ever felt in his life. But through its ache, he feels an undercurrent of relief boring into his muscles. A kind of release that leaves him gasping with a quake behind his ribs, as if he had been holding his breath for unbelievably long, as if his lungs didn’t know how to adjust to suddenly having air to breathe. As if he had been drowning all this time and in the quiet of Tivoli, held in the arms of the one person that kept him afloat, kept him home, kept him alive, he had finally touched the bend of his quicksilver memory and found the glimmering edge of surface.  

* * *

 

 

 

 

_\- I thought it was my fault. Why mom couldn’t get better._

_\- Why?_

_\- When I woke on the floor in our bathroom, she was crying, calling me baby over and over again. I told her she had promised not to call me that anymore._  
  
- _... And?_

 _-_ _She never called me anything else._

 

 

* * *

 


End file.
